Road to the Future
by sillypaulie
Summary: Harry is prepairing for the fight of his life and what happens after.


With a deep sigh Harry looked around the smallest bedroom of number four. He had just got there twenty minutes ago with his things, and he didn't know what he was going to do for the whole summer. What he really wanted was to be able to use magic outside of school but that wasn't possible at the moment. He set Hedwig's cage on the desk where it usually went and the trunk in the wardrobe for the moment, he didn't want to worry about anything magical for a while.

Harry stretched out on the bed and began to relax for a little while and wonder how long it would take the Dursley's to ignore what happened at the train station. When he realized he was hungry Harry looked over at the clock and saw that it was midnight.

"Must have dozed off," Harry said.

Harry stretched and got ready for bed. He could have gone downstairs for something to eat but decided it wasn't worth the effort. Harry took off his glasses and lay back down and went back to sleep. It was the first time in months that he was able to sleep so soundly without nightmare and forced dreams. Voldemort must be ignoring him for the moment.

The next morning Harry went downstairs prepared for anything. He wasn't about to let them to cow him into submission. If he had to he would use magic to protect himself. The Dursley's were sitting quietly at the table eating and when Harry entered they continued like he wasn't even there. When Harry had his fill he went back up stairs in the hopes of preventing a confrontation.

Harry sat at his desk and was trying to think of something to do that didn't require using magic. Since it looked really nice outside Harry decided to go for a walk. He didn't know why he brought some gold and his key but later was glad he did.

Downtown was busy as usual so he wasn't standing out much, besides everyone around Privet Drive actually shopped in London. He remembered back in first year about how those wizards or squibs that had shops that catered to both muggle and magical people they had a sticker with a pick axe and a gold bar on the front.

He had found a second hand shop that had the sticker and looking at the sign it said One Mann's Treasure. He went in, of course, and asked the person at the counter to point him in the direction of the magical stuff. The lady had pointed out a door that had the same sticker as on the front door.

"Ah, hello young man how may I help you today," the man behind the counter said.

"Do you mind if I look around first?" Harry said.

"Sure take your time," the man said.

Harry started with a cart and the books as he needed more reading material than anything else. The shelves would give Hermione a heart attack as there was no rhyme or reason to the organization of the books. What surprised him most was the fact that he was able to find anything of interest in the garbled mess. He had found a couple of books on the actual transformation process to become an animagus. He went ahead and put those in the cart first.

Then he found a copy of a book called 'Mind Arts' from what the first couple of pages said he would have no problems protecting his mind. The odd thing about the book it didn't look warn like most of the books on the shelf. It looked as though that those who used it took good care of the book and that few actually used it.

The next book that caught his eye was a set of four books. They didn't have a title or a picture of what was covered but Harry felt called to them like one would to a certain pet or something. Maybe they were dangerous but Harry didn't care so he put them in the cart.

Harry didn't find much more than what he did, all told he found twenty books mostly defense against the dark arts. He found a few books on curse breaking and warding, also two books on enchanting object that he thought would be useful.

He went through the rest of the magical side of the store and found a magical bag that could hold anything and still be feather light, a quilt that had a phoenix designed in, and if he closed his eyes and listened he could hear the phoenix song. At the counter he found an empty Pensive with the instructions still with it and a silver pocket watch with the enchantments still working, or at least that he was what he was told.

Harry eyed the wands and did nothing about them because he didn't want to get caught with an illegally obtained wand.

When he finally was ready to check out Harry asked, "How much would it cost to have some of my gold converted to muggle?"

"It is ten percent of what you want converted," the man said. Harry didn't argue very much with that as the man was trying to earn a living.

"When do you usually get new stuff in back here?" Harry said.

"Usually once a month, I go to quite a few auctions to find enough to stock the shelves," the man said.

Harry left after converting ten galleons into about five hundred pounds. Harry found a local clothing store and used some of the money he had gotten. Then he had found a shoe store and bought a decent pair of general shoes. He had used about half of the muggle money on clothes but all of them were nice quality and definitely worked well with the pocket watch.

With all of the shopping he had done today he expected to feel better about what had happened at the end of the school year but didn't. Sirius was still dead and the prophecy was still hanging over his head.

When he had gotten back to Privet Drive the Dursley's were shocked that he had bags of new clothes in his hands. It took them a few seconds to find their voices.

"Boy where did you get those clothes and better yet where did you get the money for them?" Vernon said.

"I got them in town and the people from the train station thought I could use some new clothes. The money came from some friends at school they thought it would be helpful," Harry said. "Now unless you want me to write the people from the train station about this you'll let me go up stairs and let me keep the stuff."

The Dursley's were perfectly cowed at the mention of the people at the train station. Harry went up stairs without any more problems from the Dursley's. He had unpacked his trunk finally remembering the mirror from Sirius. He had put all the pieces in the bottom of his cauldron and hoped that some time he could get that and the magical Swiss Army knife he had gotten from Sirius could be fixed at some point.


End file.
